


Lucky Seven

by Sovvie118



Series: Askpolylosersclub Oneshots [9]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Aged-Up Losers Club (IT), Anal Sex, Back Seat, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Bullying, Dirty Talk, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Hand Jobs, Heterosexual Ben Hanscom, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Making Out, Multi, Polyamorous Losers Club (IT), Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-Poly, Riding, Stanley Uris Has OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Teenage Losers Club (IT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:30:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sovvie118/pseuds/Sovvie118
Summary: A look into the beginnings of the polyamorous relationship between the members of the Losers' Club.Paired with @askpolylosersclub on Tumblr so you can take this as canon for that blog.For @poly-losers-club





	Lucky Seven

They’re nine years old.

Richie and Eddie are in Stan’s back yard, chasing each other with a water hose. Stan’s mother is tending to her roses in one of the flowerbeds nearby, wearing a large-brimmed, white sun hat that flops down at either side. It’s hot but Stan sits in the shade of the porch, reading a book and drinking some iced tea; he looks a lot older than his almost ten years.

Eddie shrieks as Richie douses him in icy water for the fifth time and Stan’s mother reprimands them without looking up from her pruning shears. There’s no real bite in her voice and they continue to run around the perimeter of the yard, yelling and laughing and dripping from their hair and clothes.

_‘If Eddie’s mom saw him like this she’d have a cow _and_ the rest of the farm, too’_, Richie thinks, looking at Eddie’s sopping clothes and grass-stained knees. Eddie takes the moment to swipe the hosepipe from Richie’s grip and sprays him dead in the face, the force of the water jet knocking his glasses right off. He’s laughing.

Richie laughs, too, turning to run as Eddie gives chase but without his glasses the garden is a blur. He trips on an empty plant pot that Mrs Uris has left near to where she’s gardening and flies straight into the picket fence. There’s a sharp pain as his face hits the wood and his vision blurs even worse for a second. Eddie drops the hose where it writhes in the grass like a giant, angry snake, spraying water every which way until Stan jumps to turn it off.

There are tears in Richie’s eyes when Stan’s mother lifts him to his feet and dusts him off but he blinks them away quickly. There’s a strange, warm feeling on his lips and chin and it isn’t until he looks down at his stained t-shirt that he realises his nose must be bleeding rather profusely. Eddie’s hands are clasped dramatically over his nose and mouth from where he’s still standing a few feet away, small and soaking wet and shivering.

“_Oh_, what did I tell you boys about roughhousing like that?” Mrs Uris scolds, but she takes Richie’s hand ever-so-lightly in her own as she leads him inside the house. When she sits him down at the kitchen table, Stan comes in, too, disappearing upstairs when his mother instructs him to fetch Richie a clean shirt.

She wipes at Richie’s face and neck with a damp cloth, showing him where to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding and doing it for him when he can’t get it right. Eddie shivers into the kitchen, too, his arms folded across his chest. He looks decidedly guilty and sorry for himself.

“Eddie, Honey, could you hold this, please?” Stan’s mother hands the bloodied cloth to Eddie and he takes it with only a small grimace as she checks to see if the bleeding has stopped. It has.

“You boys stay here while I get you some towels to dry off, okay?”

Eddie watches her leave the room, still wide-eyed and unsure.

“I think this is the end for me, Doc,” Richie says suddenly and Eddie looks over to where he’s leaning dramatically against the kitchen table. There’s dried blood around his nose and lips and it makes Eddie feel a bit queasy.

“You’re fine, _Dingus_,” Eddie responds, suddenly sure of himself as he goes over to try to give the damp, red-spotted cloth to Richie, who refuses to take it. He’s blinking a lot and swallowing hard, and Eddie knows that’s something he does when he’s shaken up; he feels a sudden wave of sympathy for him, “Sit up.”

Richie does as he’s told, clasping his hands together tightly in his lap –something else he does when he’s anxious to stop himself from fidgeting- as Eddie gently uses a clean section of the cloth to remove the dried blood from around Richie’s nose. Without his glasses, the rest of the kitchen is a blur but Eddie’s face is close enough that he can see it clearly. He opens his mouth to make another joke but Eddie uses it as an opportunity to clear the blood on his lips, too, and Richie feels strange about it. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eddie’s eyes this close before but now he has, he thinks about how very, _very_ brown they are.

“I’m sorry about your nose,” Eddie says quietly. He reaches into one of his pockets out of Richie’s line of sight to produce his glasses. He must have picked them up earlier on. Richie is about to say thank you but Eddie opens the arms and slides them onto Richie’s face himself, being extra careful around the bridge of his nose. Richie stares at him from behind the thick lenses, eyes full of wonder and curiosity.

He thinks about the girls at school with their long hair and their pink cheeks and fluttering eyelashes and can’t understand why he thinks that Eddie is prettier than all of them combined. Eddie, with his thin limbs and freckled cheeks and deep, dark eyes that sometimes twinkle with mischief.

Stan’s mother returns to the room with towels for them both, wrapping one of them around Eddie’s small shoulders and rubbing at him as she shouts for Stan to hurry and bring down a shirt. She pulls him away from Richie to dry his hair for him.

Richie doesn’t look at Eddie the same way ever again.

They’re twelve.

Bill, Eddie and Richie are playing in the Barrens, currently sitting high in the trees since, according to Bill, the floor became lava around ten minutes ago and Richie and Eddie both immediately leapt against the nearest tree trunk, scrambling up the thick, low branches to get away from the imaginary heat. It’s a common occurrence for Bill to suddenly come up with something rather dangerous to do and just as common for his friends to go along with it without a single question or doubt. If you ride with Big Bill, you ride fast or you don’t ride at all.

“This is lame,” Richie complains from somewhere above Eddie in their shared tree. A handful of leaves sprinkles into Eddie’s hair as he moves the branches and Eddie shoots him a glare, “The branches up here are too thin. I can’t get any higher.”

“Well then just stop moving!” Eddie shouts up to him, “You’re dropping shit all over me!”

Richie looks down briefly at Eddie through his glasses, purposely shaking a branch to cover Eddie’s upturned face in more tiny pieces of debris. Eddie spits and huffs and dusts his hair while Bill laughs in the tree opposite.

“The floor is _lava_, Eds! It’s not my fault you’re gonna be the first one of us to die!”

Eddie looks back towards the ground briefly. He isn’t very high up, so he climbs a little further, still keeping to the sturdier-looking limbs of the tree. He can hear Richie rustling above him and when he looks over to Bill’s tree, he seems to be almost at the top.

_‘Bill really is fearless’_, he thinks, feeling an odd tightness in his chest that must just be his asthma, but washes over him in a sudden wave. He takes a deep breath to relax himself and pulls his body up onto the next level, sitting down there and letting his feet dangle. He touches the shape of his inhaler in his left pocket to make sure that it’s still there, but the breathless feeling is gone. There’s a nice view over the Barrens from up here and he enjoys it for a little while. Bill and Richie will probably both climb right to the top of their respective trees, get bored, and climb back down. Eddie can relax a little until then.

“Hey, Eddie, look out!” Richie suddenly calls from what sounds a lot higher than he thought he was, and a broken piece of branch plummets inches from Eddie’s face. It grazes him but that’s all, “Eds! You okay?!”

Eddie is about to give him a piece of his mind, remind him of what could have happened had it actually hit him on the head or knocked him and caused him to fall, but then he notices that something else must have been dislodged with the falling branch. There’s a big, fat spider sitting right on Eddie’s shoulder, close enough for him to see the thick, hairy legs as it scuttles right towards his face.

He screams, shakes his arm about wildly, loses his grip on the tree, and falls.

The world goes by in a blur as he flails about on his way down. It isn’t really that far, but when he hits the ground with a soft thud, he lands right on a sharp rock which cuts right through his palm as he’s stretching out his hands to break his fall. He hears Richie and Bill scream his name almost at the same time.

As he pushes himself to sit up, he feels pain in a few different places and thinks that he will definitely have a couple of interesting bruises to try to explain to his mother tomorrow. The whole right side of his face is streaked with dirt and his palm is bleeding quite steadily and stickily down to his wrist.

Even though he’d climbed much higher, Bill still gets to him first, jumping the last couple of feet out of the tree and stumbling a little on impact as he runs to where Eddie is cradling his bloodied hand. He drops to his knees beside him, eyes wide with shock, the electric blue of his irises just an outline for blown pupils.

“Y-y-you okay?”

Eddie nods but he feels shaky and he’s worried that he’s going to cry. He wants to say that it’s just his hand but before he manages to speak, Bill is taking Eddie’s palm gently in both of his own to examine the wound. For some reason, panic flares briefly in Eddie’s mind about getting his blood on Bill and _contaminating_ him, but Bill is already using the edge of his own t-shirt to clean it away, as if it’s nothing.

“Eds! Oh jeez he’s bleeding!”

There’s another thud as Richie drops out of the tree close by, but Eddie can’t stop looking at the red stains on Bill’s white t-shirt. His throat feels tight and he suddenly gets light-headed. He’s about to tell them, to explain that he needs to use his inhaler but Bill asks him again if he’s okay and it draws his attention to kind, blue eyes looking into his own.

_Beautiful blue eyes._

His chest feels both heavy and light at the same time, the same as before. Bill is still holding his hand ever-so-gently and Eddie wants to pull it away because he’s worried that he’s going to burn. That’s what happens to_ men who like to touch other men_, his momma always says. He doesn’t fully understand what it means but he feels deeply ashamed that where Bill’s fingers are touching his own, it feels nice.

He yanks his hand away to get his inhaler and forgets about it.

They’re fourteen.

At a sleepover at Bill’s house, Eddie and Richie share their first kiss in the bathroom. In Bill’s bedroom, Bill perches on the edge of his bed while Stan sits on a sleeping bag on the floor. His pyjamas are too big and he looks thin and delicate. As Ben and Mike get something to drink in the kitchen downstairs, he and Bill laugh about what Richie and Eddie might be doing to take so long.

“Eddie’s p-probably just checking to see what’s in the m-m-muh-medicine cabinet,” Bill chuckles, tucking his knees up on the edge of his bed to wrap his arms around them. There are open comic books strewn across the quilt beside him.

“Or they climbed out through the window to go and do something more _fun,_” Stan quips, and catches Bill’s eye with a soft smirk. Bill knows that he’s _mostly_ joking; he did, after all, bring his own book to the sleepover.

“_Hey_,” Bill warns, but there’s a playful look on his face, “I th-thought you liked Monopoly.” He motions to the board that is still set up on the floor. There’s a significant pile of brightly-coloured, fake dollar bills near to where Stan is sitting.

“Only when I win.” Stan looks at the board, too, before getting to his knees and reaching over to start clearing it up.

“You _always_ w-w-win.” Bill slides off the edge of the bed and goes to help. He collects all of the tiny, plastic houses into his palm and tips them into their little, plastic bag when Stan holds it open for him. Even though Stan seemed amused by his comment, he seems quieter than usual. He’s about to ask him if he’s okay when Stan suddenly speaks again.

“Making out,” he says matter-of-factly, like it’s a fully comprehensible sentence. For a few, heart-racing moments, Bill thinks that Stan is referring to what he thought would be more fun than playing Monopoly, and his mouth goes dry. He wants to ask what he’s talking about but the words won’t form and when he reaches out for the cardboard base of the board game to fold it up, Stan does the same and their hands touch. It all happens in the same three seconds but for some reason time feels like it’s going in slow motion.

Stan has stopped moving, his hand lingering where it touched Bill’s. Bill hasn’t moved either. He isn’t really sure what’s happening or why he suddenly feels the same anxiety he gets before he has to speak in front of the class at school or…the same way he feels when Beverly smiles at him with a soft look in her eyes. He dares to bring his gaze up to look at Stan, and thankfully Stan isn’t looking back but don’t his cheeks look a little flushed? Bill’s mind is racing. He’s never felt so confused.

“Richie and Eddie,” Stan says sharply and finally, breaking the tension, “They’re probably making out.”

Bill almost feels like he can breathe again and after collecting his thoughts, he laughs. Stan chuckles a little, too, reaching past Bill’s hand to fold up the board and put it away. The moment is gone but certainly not forgotten.

Bill lies awake for hours in the dark afterwards, thinking about how Stan is sleeping just next to his bed on the floor and wondering if Stan is lying awake thinking the same thing.

They’re sixteen.

Stan sits in the bleachers at Derry High School’s race track, a notebook open but forgotten in his lap and a pair of expensive binoculars hanging around his neck. The track team sprints past the crowded seats and everyone erupts into cheers. Beside Stan, Richie stands and screams “GO, HAYSTACK, GO!” and jostles Eddie, who is sitting next to him looking equally excited. At the head of the group of runners, Ben Hanscom, who in just two years’ time has lost close to sixty pounds of weight and is not only looking decidedly thinner but now that his face has grown into its features, a bit of a teen heart throb, prompting Richie to start sometimes jokingly calling him ‘Rob’ after the actor ‘Rob Lowe’. Stan has noticed that Ben doesn’t seem to like this comparison; his eyes dart away uncomfortably whenever anyone mentions it.

Beverly is sitting on the row in front of Stan smoking a cigarette. She leans back against his legs to take a drag, but snuffs out the remains of it on the bench as Ben sprints past them all again so she can stick her fingers in her mouth and emit an ear-splitting whistle. Richie reaches past Stan to pat her on the shoulder and she turns around, beaming at him, to hand him another Marlboro out of a crumpled packet. Bill isn’t smoking but he’s sitting next to Bev and he turns and lights Richie’s cigarette for him, dropping the lighter onto the floor under the bleachers when Mike hooks an arm around his shoulder from the other side and cheers loudly. Bill and Bev both ignore the missing lighter to cheer with him. Eddie wrinkles his nose at the plume of smoke Richie has just blown out, but he quickly forgets it and stands to clap enthusiastically as Ben crosses the finish line miles ahead of everyone else.

It’s the end of the school day, so other spectators grab their bags and leave for home as the race finishes but the Losers’ stay behind, climbing down over the seats to get to Ben. Beverly runs to him first and practically leaps at him, throwing her arms around his neck but thankfully he anticipated it and catches her easily, chuckling into her neck. Richie is still finishing his cigarette but he pitches it after he sees the track coach approaching them. He’s loosely holding Eddie’s hand.

When Coach Woodleigh gets to them he looks decidedly unhappy about the whole thing. Beverly slides out of Ben’s arms and steps aside but she’s looking at the teacher with fire burning in her eyes and Stan thinks she looks almost frightening. Ben wipes his sweat-damp hair out of his face and doesn’t say anything, although Stan sees him swallow hard when he looks at the older man.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” the coach says flatly; the way he’s looking into Ben’s eyes is something like hatred, “There’s no place for you on my team. I _already_ told you.”

Ben looks like he’s going to shrink back at first, like he might turn away and walk, but he doesn’t. He folds his arms across his chest and takes a deep breath, all calm and composition. You’d never have guessed the way he’d just been tearing up the asphalt like some sort of machine.

“Why would I wanna be on your team when I can outrun them all?”

Stan sees the way Woodleigh’s fist curls into a ball and for a second, in the silence between the eight of them, he worries that Ben is about to get a square one right in the jaw. Ben seems to be thinking the same thing; he’s steady but it’s in his eyes, although he still doesn’t move away. He’s almost the same height as the coach.

“You and your little _friends_ better not come back here again,” he spits slowly, making a show of looking at Richie and Eddie’s joined hands when he says the word ‘friends’ like he just uttered a curse. Then he walks away. Ben watches him leave and Stan almost sees a little of the same fire in his eyes as in Bev’s, just for a brief moment, and then it’s gone.

“What a _jerk_,” Mike says suddenly, and they all laugh as he pulls Ben into a rough hug, “Well done, Buddy. He’s just mad that you’re so good.” Ben chuckles against Mike’s shoulder and squeezes him back with a muffled ‘Thanks, Mike’. Richie pats Ben roughly on the back, before Eddie gives him a hug and Bill gives him a rather jock-like high five, hand hug sort of thing. It makes Stan cringe and he rolls his eyes.

“Well done,” Stan says finally, when it’s his turn, feeling a little awkward but he’s never been very good at this sort of thing. Ben smiles at him warmly with a soft ‘Thanks’, gives Beverly another quick embrace and kisses her on the cheek, before heading inside the gym hall to go and change out of his track clothes.

They all sit on the edge of the bleachers to wait for him and Richie and Beverly share another cigarette, passing it between them. Once or twice, Bill takes a quick drag of it, too, when one of them holds it to his lips. It’s starting to get dark outside and when the embers light up Bill’s face and his blue eyes glisten, Stan’s heart jumps into his throat. He takes the binoculars from around his neck and passes them to Eddie to hold along with his notebook.

“I’m gonna go and see what’s taking him so long,” he mutters, entering the building through the side door before any of them can say anything.

It’s pitch black inside the changing rooms and for a second he worries that Ben isn’t in here at all. The stadium lights around the track have come on and are shining through the high-set windows, casting rectangles of light on the floor around the lockers.

“Ben?”

There’s no answer but he did say it rather quietly, never fond of the sound of his own voice. He ventures further into the locker room, almost tripping right over a gym bag which he recognises as Ben’s once he takes a closer look at it. It’s unzipped and Ben’s clothes are draped over the bench beside it next to an empty water bottle.

“Ben?” He calls louder this time, cursing himself for jumping when Ben actually replies from somewhere near the showers.

“Stan?”

“Yeah. What’s taking you so long?” He sits down on the bench next to Ben’s things, resisting the urge to tidy them away into the bag.

“Sorry! I had to take a shower!”

“Whatever,” Stan mumbles under his breath. He looks at the time on his digital watch. It’s almost seven and his parents will be expecting him back for dinner. If it weren’t for this co-dependant thing they all have going on where they can’t go anywhere without each other, he would be home by now. He gets up to go to his own locker, just to double-check that he didn’t accidentally leave anything in there last time he was here. He knows he hasn’t; he always leaves it completely empty, but in his compulsivity he can’t help himself.

He’s standing in the way as Ben exits the showers and he walks right into him. When Ben’s bare chest accidentally touches Stan’s arm, Ben jumps back like he’s been electrocuted, apologising profusely and covering himself up with a towel that he’s holding. He’s wearing clean sweatpants but there’s nothing on his top half at all and for a second, Stan can’t help taking a look at what Ben has turned into over the years. He’s trying to hide himself with the towel but Stan’s eyes still catch the beginnings of muscle definition in Ben’s stomach and he feels briefly flustered, like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.

“Sorry,” Ben says again, seeming to relax a little when he realises how stupid it was to cover himself up. He sighs and closes his eyes briefly, like he’s inwardly cursing himself, before moving carefully past Stan to get to his clothes.

For once, Stan doesn’t know what to say. He turns to Ben again, watching the muscles moving in his back and shoulders as he drops the towel and pulls a t-shirt over his head and he’s suddenly glad for the dark because he’s sure his cheeks must be burning. It feels wrong, to be looking at one of your best friends like _that_, but his heart is racing. He briefly thinks of Bill, wonders if that’s what Bill’s body looks like now that he’s older, then shakes that thought _quickly_ away, feeling doubly ashamed.

He stays away as Ben packs his dirty clothes into the bag on the floor and then fills up his bottle from the water fountain, taking a long, slow drink from it. His eyes linger on Ben’s lips and the way his throat moves when he swallows and he has to get out of this room _right_ _now_. He feels like he might be sweating.

“Let’s go,” Ben says with a quick smile as he slings his bag over his shoulder and he waits for Stan to leave first. When the cool outside air hits Stan’s skin, he feels his head clear again. Next time he’ll definitely just ask Mike to go and check on him instead.

That night, he has a feverish dream about a dark, steamy locker room. By morning, he’s forgotten all about it, although every time they see Ben running after that day, he feels his mouth go a little dry.

They’re still sixteen.

Ben has tried out for the track team again, despite the warnings from the coach. He stands in the locker room in front of Woodleigh and the whole track team, none of whom seem to have taken a liking to Ben since he started making them look like amateurs. All of them are sweating, some still breathing heavy from sprinting so hard around the track to try and keep pace with Ben. Coach Woodleigh’s mouth is a thin, tight line on his face.

“I _told_ you not to come back here!” His voice booms, echoes around the room and it makes Ben flinch a little. He’s scared but he’s trying not to show it.

“And I told _you_ I can outrun all of these guys, so why won’t you put me on the team?!”

His head is swimming with the fear of speaking back to an adult, especially someone who has been so aggressive towards him in the past, but he’s angry and he can’t stop the words from coming out. It was a mistake. Woodleigh’s fist flies towards him but it ends as an open palm and connects hard with Ben’s left cheek. It spins his head to the side but the man gets a grip on his chin to turn him back. His eyes sting with the effort of holding back tears of both anger and distress. There’s a quiver in his bottom lip that he has to bite back.

_“Now, you listen to me, you smart-mouthed little shit,”_ he hisses through his teeth. Ben tries to turn away but the hold on his jaw is vice-like and fingers dig into the hollows of his cheeks. All of the team are looking at him and he can hear some of them sniggering, _“If you come back here again. Hell, if you so much as speak to me or look in my fucking direction again, I’ll leave you with more’n a handprint on your cheek. Do you understand me, Son?” _

Ben feels physically sick with anger but he really just wants to be anywhere but here right now, so he forces himself to nod, struggling to move his head with the coach’s big, sweaty hand still firmly planted against his face. He hears more sniggering around him and some whispers, but he blocks those out. He’s used to blocking those out.

Woodleigh’s eyes seem to study him for a while as if he’s trying to detect any sort of defiance, before he rips his hand away and wipes it on his sweatpants as if he’s touched something disgusting. He steps aside, leaving Ben a clear path to the doorway. A silent way of telling him to get the fuck out.

All eyes are on him, burning into his back as he takes what feels like a walk of shame out of the locker room and into the school corridor. As he pushes the door open, he hears the coach say to the team “You can’t train being a fat, lazy piece of shit out of someone. It’s a sickness of the mind.” He wants to turn around and go back inside; maybe he’d be able to throw a punch or two at him before he was dragged off to the principal’s office and that would certainly be worth it. But he keeps walking.

He sees his locker in the distance, scrawled with hateful words, still visible even where his friends have tried to cover them up. Not as many as when he was in middle school, but some of the same people have followed him here and apparently they’re still out for his blood.

_‘Fatboy blood’, _he thinks to himself, and suddenly he really feels like he’s about to cry, so he does what he always does when his emotions get out of control; he starts to run. He picks up speed as he sprints down the hallways, knocking into a couple of people on his way past when they don’t move quick enough. All of their eyes follow him and he hates it even more.

For a second, he hears Mike’s voice calling after him and realises that he must have run past him at some point, but he doesn’t stop. If he does, he’ll just cry in front of everyone and give them even more reason to make fun of him. He reaches the boys bathroom and shoulders the door open to get inside, quickly locking himself inside one of the cubicles just as he starts to break down.

His cheek still stings where he was hit and he’s shaking, like all of the adrenaline of the moment has finally hit him in one gigantic, overwhelming wave. He sinks to the floor as he cries hard into his trembling hands, trying to stifle any obvious sobs from anyone who might be listening. He briefly thinks about what Eddie would say if he saw him sitting on the floor of a dirty, public school toilet and it makes him cry even harder because he really wants one of his friends to be here.

As if on cue, he hears the bathroom door open and Mike’s voice, full of concern.

“Ben? Are you in here?”

He tries to speak right away but it only comes out as a hitch in his breath that he has to swallow. Mike must have ears like a damn bat because he comes right over to the cubicle that Ben is sitting in and knocks gently on the door.

“Ben? Is that you? I saw you…before. Are you okay?”

Ben doesn’t say anything. He can’t speak through the thickness in his throat and he hasn’t cried in front of Mike before. Now that he’s here, he isn’t sure he wants him to see it. Mike still seems to know that it’s him.

“What happened? Was it coach Woodleigh again? Ben, what’d he say to you?” There’s a brief, painful pause, “Did he hit you?”

Ben can’t stop the very obvious sob that leaves him at the sound of pain in Mike’s voice. He reaches up to unlock the door when Mike asks him to, allowing Mike to pull it open as he stays on the floor. As soon as Mike sees him he lets out a sound almost between a sigh and a gasp, and he immediately crouches to pull him into a tight hug with an “_Oh, Ben_.”

He cries even harder into the shoulder of Mike’s sweater than he did before, feeling a little bit of concern about how this might look if someone were to walk in but unable to stop. Mike is clearly less worried about such a scenario; he shifts to sit on the floor properly beside Ben so he can fully get his arms around him and pull him close.

“_It’s okay_.”

Ben breathes in another shaky sob, feeling pathetic clinging to Mike like this, unable to control himself and stop crying but something about Mike has broken down the last of his barriers. Even when his sobs finally die down and he’s just sniffling, Mike still holds him tightly and gets a hand into his hair. It feels strangely comfortable.

“He hit me,” Ben says finally, quietly, clearing his throat when there’s a shake in his voice. He lifts his head so Mike can see the red mark on his cheek and Mike hisses in sympathy, “He finally hit me.”

“You should go to the police, he’s an adult you can’t just-”

“No. He can’t do anything else to me, now,” Ben says, leaning back against the wall. He feels drained but calmer than he has in a while, “He knows that he could lose his job if I tell someone about it.”

“Yeah, so tell someone about it,” Mike raises his eyebrows, “He shouldn’t be allowed to do that. He shouldn’t be allowed to hurt you.”

“I’m fine. It wasn’t a punch. I think he really wanted to, but…he couldn’t do it in front of the other guys.”

“I don’t care if it wasn’t a punch!”

Ben is a little shocked by Mike’s sudden raised voice and he goes quiet, watching him closely.

“You can’t just let him get away with that! You should take more care of yourself!” he continues, looking a little exasperated, “Ben, please…if you don’t go to someone then I will. I’m not gonna sit by while he knocks you around and teaches those other kids that it’s okay to speak to you the way that _he_ always speaks to you!”

He stays silent, watching the fury dancing in Mike’s dark eyes, not aimed at him but at everyone who has ever called him a name or hurt him. It feels odd to have someone being so protective over him. He opens his mouth to speak again but Mike cuts him off.

“Ben…_please_. For me. Let’s just go right now and tell someone, okay? Together. I’ll be right there with you.”

It’s something he has never considered before. To Ben, the bullying was just an unfortunate side effect of being a Loser. In that moment, Mike makes him feel different. Mike makes him feel like he can actually do something about it. He allows Mike to pull him to his feet, still watching him in admiration as they leave the bathroom and head straight to the principal’s office. After they go in to see him, Mike doesn’t make Ben say a word, clearly sensing that he’s not feeling up to it. He does all of the talking, tells the principal everything that Ben knows he should have told him himself years ago while Ben sits in the chair next to him and looks nervously at his feet.

When they finally leave, the corridor is empty of students and Mike pulls Ben into another hug. He smells warm and familiar and Ben feels, oddly, like he could stay there forever. His shoulders feel incredibly light and his chest feels a little fuzzy.

They walk to their next class together and on their way there, coach Woodleigh passes them on his way to the principal’s office. He gives Ben a nasty look and as he does, Ben feels Mike’s hand slip into his own and give it a reassuring squeeze. He smiles in response to it, right in Woodleigh’s face, wondering briefly if that vein in his forehead might actually pop soon.

When he’s gone, they both laugh until Ben feels like his sides are going to split and there are tears in his eyes. These ones feel good.

The next time Ben goes to his locker, it’s been painted over by the janitor. There’s something scratched into the new paint and Ben fears the worst as he leans down to read it but, amazingly, in what he’s sure is Mike’s handwriting, the phrase ‘You are brave’ stands out just below the handle. He brushes his finger over it and chews at his lip to try and stop himself from smiling too wide.

Every time he goes to his locker afterwards, he touches it again and thinks about Mike.

They’re almost eighteen.

At their school prom, Mike feels a bit like a seventh wheel but he doesn’t mind. He sits at a table with Bill, Stan, Ben and Bev. Richie and Eddie disappeared earlier into the night and nobody has seen them since. It’s getting close to midnight and Mike cradles a glass of sweet punch between his hands. He’d come with a date, a very pretty, blonde-haired girl called Stacy Williams who was on the same cheerleading team as Eddie. Around ten P.M. she’d complained that he was spending too much time with his friends and left on her own. Mike feels kind of bad about it.

“Hey, sh-sh-she doesn’t know what she’s missing,” Bill comforts from his right, offering him a soft smile. His and Stan’s fingers are entwined against the table and he’s been beaming about it all night. Mike is very happy for them but it makes him feel like even more of an accessory.

“Thanks, Big Bill,” Mike chuckles and Bill laughs at the nickname, like he always does when he hears one of them say it out loud in front of him, “I guess it just wasn’t right.”

Beverly reaches over to take Mike’s hand gently. Her nails are painted red to match her dress and she looks particularly pretty with her hair tied up and held in place with a rose.

“Do you wanna dance?” she asks with a little smirk, squeezing her fingers against Mike’s palm.

He shakes his head and chuckles but Beverly gets up out of her seat and climbs over Ben to get to Mike. She bows exaggeratedly and sticks out her hand, palm facing up to the ceiling. Her blue eyes are _dazzling_ in the twinkling, multi-coloured lights.

“C’mon, Mike.”

“Bev…”

“May I have this dance, Sir?” She smiles at him expectantly, moving her head to follow his eye movements, “Don’t keep a lady waiting.”

Mike heaves himself out of his seat with a sigh, but he still looks pleased. He glances over to Ben, who sits back in his chair and motions for them to go with a smile.

“Be my guest. Maybe you can tire her out,” he says jokily, chuckling when Beverly sticks her tongue out at him and gives him a playful little wink.

She drags Mike into the very middle of the dancefloor, where there are still a number of couples swaying and embracing in the low light. He thinks that all of these other people must feel nervous with their dates, but Beverly’s fingers on his shoulders feel natural and comfortable, like they’re supposed to be there. He places his hands against her small waist, moving with her basically taking the lead, as usual. She took off her shoes a couple of hours ago so Mike is careful not to step on her bare feet. Her toenails are painted to match her dress, too.

“Did you really like her?” Beverly suddenly asks. She’s looking up into his eyes with such love and compassion that it takes his breath away briefly.

“I mean…she was nice,” he responds, watching Beverly’s lips twitch at the corner into a smile, “Just nice…”

“Just nice,” Beverly repeats softly, and her next smile is almost sad. She smooths her palms over Mike’s shoulders and adjusts the collar of his shirt and then his tie, performing each action so slowly and carefully that Mike can’t think of any other reason than love. It’s mutual; he loves Beverly, too. Not like a sister…but not quite like a friend, either. He’s sometimes wondered whether he might be _in love_ with her, but that’s not right. He loves her in the same way that he loves all of them so that can’t be right.

“Guess I’m just third-wheelin’ it for the rest of my life then, huh?” he says. It’s meant to be a joke but it comes out sounding much sadder than he anticipated and he can tell so in Beverly’s eyes. She looks at his face for a long while, her gaze moving around what feels like every inch of it, before she slides her arms around his neck and rests her head there, too. Her hair is soft against his jaw.

“I love you, Mike,” she whispers, her breath tickling his ear as he wraps his arms around her waist. He should be worried about how this looks, perhaps even the way Ben might be looking at them, but he feels completely calm because something about this is _right_.

As they gently sway in the low lights, he rests his head against hers and it feels as natural as anything to him. She smells like Lilac perfume and just a hint of Ben’s cologne from where she was dancing with him, earlier, too. The two together are a strangely comforting aroma.

_“I love you, too, Bev.” _

They’re eighteen.

It’s midnight in New York City and Beverly Marsh lies on the roof of the house she shares with the rest of the Losers’ Club. Richie is lying beside her, long arms tucked behind his head and a cigarette hanging from his lips. It’s two days after his eighteenth Birthday and Beverly thinks that he somehow looks older than before, as ridiculous as that sounds.

He lifts the cigarette from his lips and slowly lets some smoke escape from between them, passing it to Beverly without looking over. She takes it from his hand and places it in her own mouth. It’s a little bit moist from where Richie had left it sitting between his lips for so long but she doesn’t care. She takes a long drag.

“Do you know anything about the stars?” she asks him, blowing some smoke into the cool air and watching it dissipate.

“Nah. I bet Stan would be able to tell you…or maybe Ben or Mike.”

“What do you think that one is?” she points upwards and Richie’s gaze follows her finger. He mulls it over for a while.

“Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare isn’t a constellation. He was a poet.”

They both chuckle for a while and Richie coughs a bit, hammering his chest with his fist until it stops. She takes another drag of the cigarette before putting it out against the roof tiles with a satisfying hiss. It takes her a while to notice that Richie is looking at her.

“What? Why are you staring at me?”

“Have you and Ben fucked?”

The question is so sudden that it catches her off-guard and she laughs out loud.

“_What?_”

Richie raises his eyebrows at her expectantly, pulling his glasses to the end of his nose. But two can play at that game.

“Yeah. Have _you and Eddie_?”

“U-huh.”

“When?”

“My Birthday two days ago. You?”

“I was sixteen. Remember when Ben won that race and we all walked home together? Well, I didn’t go to my house,” Beverly chuckles, looking right back at him almost defiantly, “But it’s happened _plenty_ of times since then.”

“What’s ‘plenty’?”

“I don’t know…almost every week…” She sits up to light another Marlboro and Richie does the same to watch her, looking a little bit scandalised.

“_Damn_. So _that’s_ why he looks so good. Not just been working out on the track. He’s got his own sexy little personal trainer.”

They both laugh. Her cigarette won’t light and it’s only then that she realises that her hands are shaking ever-so-slightly. She doesn’t know why but it doesn’t matter; Richie reaches over to hold her hand steady so the flame can lick the end of the cigarette and it finally catches. There’s a long silence between them as she takes a couple of drags. She can feel Richie’s eyes on the side of her face.

“What’s it like?” he asks suddenly, and there’s a change in his voice that she can’t quite put her finger on, “With Ben.”

He seems like he wants to sit closer to her but he doesn’t, and it feels strange. His hands are clasped together like he’s trying not to fidget. The cool air suddenly doesn’t feel so cool anymore. As soon as he’s asked the question he seems like he wants to take it back but he doesn’t, and she desperately wishes that he would make another stupid joke and laugh like usual. He doesn’t do that either.

“Good,” she says quietly, so quietly that she wonders if he even hears it but his eyes flick over to her for a second and she doesn’t understand what’s happening. They talk about stuff like this all the time and it’s normal and easy and they always end up in fits of giggles but this time, she feels as if she’s telling him her deepest, darkest secrets, “Amazing. I…didn’t think it would be so…”

“_Intense_,” Richie finishes her sentence for her and they share an understanding look, “It was like that with Eddie, too.”

She passes him the rest of the cigarette but her hand is shaking properly, now and he clearly sees it. He takes it from her and brings it to his lips briefly, before pitching it off the roof and grabbing her hand to hold it, instead. His fingers are incredibly cold, as usual, and she thinks that he might be shaking a little, too. She sees him take in a breath.

“Something is happening to us, Bev,” he says, matter-of-factly, “I don’t know what, but…something is different.”

“_What do you mean_?” Her voice is barely a whisper. She knows exactly what he means. She’s felt some odd things as of late, had some strange dreams that include all seven of them. Her feelings for them all have suddenly become more acute, more intense and sometimes it almost scares her. None of them have spoken about it until now.

“Bev, I think I-”

But she doesn’t want to hear any more. She shakes her head to stop him and drags her hand out of his grip. As she crawls to the edge of the roof, Richie calls after her, desperate.

“Bev! Please, I can’t talk about this with anyone else! You know what’s happening, I know you do! We _all_ do but _nobody_ has had the balls to say it!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rich.” She tries not to let her voice shake but it does anyway as she turns around on her hands and knees to start to lower herself off the roof’s edge, but she miscalculates her grip in her panic, and slips. Immediately, as if he’d been there all along, Richie grabs for her arm as she’s mid-scream. His knuckles are white against the lip of the roof as he holds her, suspended in the air, with just a grip around her wrist. Both of them are wide-eyed.

“_Oh, fuck_,” he says shakily. His grip on her wrist is painfully tight like he’s struggling to hold on, “Okay, okay…just don’t move…I’m gonna try and pull you up.”

“Rich…”

She tries to reach for the edge of the roof to get a hold of it with her free hand but it suddenly seems so far away and her fingers slip off as soon as they make contact. She screams again as Richie slides a little way off the edge of the roof himself, pulled by her weight and barely clinging on with his other hand. There are banging sounds from inside the house like someone running down the stairs.

“_It’s okay I got you. I got you, Baby_. _I won’t let go_.”

Richie’s face, although there’s some panic in his eyes, looks lovely to her, then. She was going to scream again but she stops, in complete belief that this man would never and _will_ never let anything happen to her. She hears the sound of the front door opening beneath her and the sound of Eddie screaming in shock. Bill’s voice is there, too.

“R-R-RICHIE LET GO AND WE’LL CATCH HER!”

“No! You can’t she- she’ll get hurt!”

“IT’S NOT THAT FAR! J-JUST LET GO!”

While Richie looks the exact opposite, Beverly feels surprisingly calm all of a sudden.

_‘None of them would ever let anything bad happen to me. I’m safe’_, she thinks, and she worms her hand out of Richie’s grip. As she falls, her fingers catch one of Richie’s bracelets and it snaps, showering tiny, wooden beads onto the garden below. Before she lands, knocking both Bill and Eddie to the ground when they catch her, she hears Richie screaming her name.

As they lie sprawled on the grass, Eddie being the first one to get up and check that Beverly is okay, she looks back up at Richie to see him climbing, faster than would be considered safe, down the side of the house. When he hits the ground he runs straight to her, dropping to pull her into a tight embrace. Her fingers grasp at the back of his denim jacket and she strokes at his shoulders fondly, chuckling as Eddie over-examines a bruise on her elbow that was already there.

Later that night, when she’s lying in bed, she thinks about what Richie said and she knows, deep down, that he’s right.

They’re nineteen.

Richie and Eddie are home alone in their bedroom, sheets a tangled mess around them as Eddie rides him into the mattress. What started as sleepy morning sex turned quickly into something much more intense as soon as Eddie got on top. Richie’s clothes are still on, sweats hanging around his thighs and t-shirt pushed high under his arms but Eddie is completely bare above him, all glistening, naked skin and pink cheekbones.

With his head pressed back into their pillows, Richie arches his back, mouth slack in a silent gasp as Eddie grinds his hips down onto him in a solid rhythm. He’s torn between wanting to just let Eddie take him apart like this and hoping to preserve some dignity and not come way too soon into the session. Eddie knows this, he can read Richie like a book and he presses down even harder with each rock of his hips, trying not to get too lost in it himself but Richie is so deep in him that he can’t focus for long on much else.

“_Oh, fuck_-” Richie blurts out suddenly and Eddie feels a little spark of excitement go through him. Richie is starting to edge into the talkative phase, now. Eddie’s favourite part of the act. He watches Richie’s hands come up to meet his hips and rolls into the contact, biting back the whimper that suddenly comes out of nowhere and threatens to completely fuck up his place of control. But Richie’s hips buck up against him and it knocks the sound out of him anyway as he tries to hold himself steady.

Thankfully, Richie is still too lost; Eddie rides him a little faster to keep it that way and feels Richie’s fingers grasp hard at his waist. He has to bite at his lip again when Richie moans his name out loud to stop himself from responding in kind, but it still sends a wave of pleasure through his entire body that makes him reach between his own legs to start rubbing himself off. His toes curl against the sheets as he feels Richie start to rut up into him, bouncing him slightly with each impact and he drops his head back with a gasp. He’s going to come much sooner than he thought and the idea of doing it right over Richie’s chest brings him even closer to the edge. It feels dirty and disgusting but _oh, god_, when he’s with Richie everything is dirty and disgusting and it feels _good_.

“_Do you ever think about fucking Bill_?”

Everything comes crashing down the moment those words leave Richie’s lips. There’s a sudden clarity in the room again where Eddie’s mind had been fuzzy before. He realises that he has two choices: ride this out to the end, keep going and pretend he didn’t hear what Richie said _or_ stop and get mad about it. He settles for something closer to the latter, halting his movements and resting both of his sweating palms against his bare thighs. Richie is looking up at him expectantly.

“…Why the _fuck_ would you say that?” he asks breathlessly, reaching up to brush his bangs out of his face where they’ve stuck to him. He pushes Richie’s hands away from his hips, suddenly irritated by them.

“It was just a question, Eds.”

“_No_, it wasn’t. That’s not the kind of thing you ask your boyfriend while you’re having _sex_. That’s not even the kind of thing you ask your boyfriend, period.”

He can feel himself getting wound up, and shoves Richie’s hands away again when they settle close to his own against his thighs. There’s a long silence as Eddie looks away at Richie’s glasses where they’re folded on the nightstand. He was _so_ close before but now he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get back to that point and that makes him feel even angrier.

“You didn’t say no.”

“_What_?”

“You didn’t say _no_.”

Eddie feels his cheeks heat up, hoping that they haven’t betrayed him by turning bright red.

“Are you for _fucking_ real right now?”

“Why are you getting so mad? Because you know I’m right?”

He tries to get up, ready to put his clothes back on and make a huge show of storming out of the room with a nice ‘fuck you, Rich’ to show how angry he is, but Richie senses that he’s about to move and grips at both of his wrists, holding him in place. Eddie thinks he is close to seeing red.

“No! I _don’t_ think about Bill while we’re having sex! Are you _fucking_ happy now?!”

Thinking that Richie will just let him go and that this will all be over, he stops trying to struggle out of his grip. His heart feels like it’s about to beat right out of his chest. Richie stares into his eyes for a while, and he really tries to convey just how mad he is with only a look, but he’s blindsided again by what Richie says next.

“I’ve thought about doing this with Stan.”

Eddie’s breath shakes on his next inhale, but he doesn’t say anything. He should be livid but it feels like all of the fire has gone out of him suddenly. He shifts in Richie’s lap like he’s going to try and get up again and Richie’s grip loosens like he’s going to let him, but he stays put. His cheeks are burning, his whole face is burning, but he doesn’t feel angry anymore. It’s as if he’s come to some kind of long-awaited realisation. Although now he’s had it he doesn’t know what to do next.

“I know how you feel about Bill-”

“Rich-”

“Let me finish. I know how you feel about Bill…because I feel the same way about Stan…and I didn’t know how to bring it up because _obviously_ that’s not something you just talk about…but I had to. I can’t pretend like it isn’t happening anymore.”

“I mean, we _could_ just pretend.”

“_No_, _Eds_…I’ve seen the way Bill looks at you, too…and I don’t know for sure, but…that can’t just be a coincidence.”

“You’re losing it, Tozier.”

“I’m not! Remember last week, when we all went swimming at the beach, and you took off your shirt to put on some sun tan lotion? Bill was staring at you _the whole time_.”

“He _was_ not,” Eddie feels his irritation starting to grow again and is about to reach over to get his clothes but Richie quickly sits up and holds him steady in his lap. The movement makes Eddie’s dick stir again where his erection was starting to wane and he lets out a little gasp, groaning at him irritably “_Rich_…”

Richie’s hands splay out across Eddie’s back, before he slides his arms around his waist to hold him tight.

“You’re not going until you admit it,” Richie says, watching Eddie’s face closely and observing the way his cheeks have reddened again.

“Admit what?”

“That you wanna fuck Bill.”

“I’m not…I’m not gonna say that so just give up and let me _go_.”

Eddie’s voice catches at the last word as Richie drops him against the bed, lying heavy between his thighs. He’s getting a little riled up again but he resists wrapping his legs around him and tries to look unamused by the flip.

“Just say it, Eds.”

“Go fuck yourself, Richie.”

He hums a little as Richie starts to rock him into the bed, biting it back from becoming anything louder than that. Everything is starting to get slightly hazy again. Richie leans in to kiss at his neck and he moves to allow him to get closer but doesn’t say anything.

“Stan told me that Bill’s good with his hands,” he says low into Eddie’s ear and despite Eddie’s responding ‘_Fuck you_’, he feels his thighs clamp against him and he’s sure that Eddie’s back has arched off the bed.

“I’m not mad that you wanna fuck Bill, Eddie,” he continues, ignoring the knee that gets jabbed into his waist, “_I_ would probably fuck Bill. He’s got a nice body.”

“_Stop it._”

Eddie’s voice is sounding a little shaky, now, and Richie speeds the grind of his hips, shuddering when Eddie’s fingertips dig into his shoulders and back. He knows that he has Eddie exactly where he wants him.

“Tell me, Eddie. Tell me that you want Bill to fuck you.”

There’s no response from Eddie, but he can feel that he’s gone considerably more pliant. His thighs have dropped apart to give Richie more space to move and his arms are draped over Richie’s shoulders and around his neck loosely. It’s the calm before the storm. He always goes quiet just before he’s about to get _loud_.

On the next thrust of Richie’s hips, which he makes extra hard as if he’s trying to knock the confession right out of him, Eddie drops his head back against the crumpled sheets and groans Richie’s name. The next one after that, his right hand drops from Richie’s neck to grasp at the bed and his mouth opens again in a loud gasp. Each time Richie’s hips hit his own from then on, it draws another sound out of him, and Richie lifts Eddie’s other arm off his shoulder to shift onto his knees so he’s in a better position to rail him properly.

He knows from experience that it’s one of Eddie’s favourite positions and it certainly doesn’t disappoint this time, either. Aiming to get Eddie lost enough in the moment that he’ll admit _anything_, he fucks him hard, holding the smaller man’s lower body raised in his lap so he has a good angle to really snap their hips together.

After only a couple of minutes of this pace, Eddie is a mess of jumbled words and curses and brief mentions of Richie’s name. His back repeatedly arches high off the bed as if he’s trying to get closer to Richie, the sheets a tangled mess in his hands either side of his head. His cheeks and forehead are nicely rouged where his hair sticks to him.

“_Tell me you want Bill to fuck you_,” Richie breathes heavily, watching the beautiful curve of Eddie’s body as he lifts his hips again in Richie’s hands. Eddie doesn’t say anything, but his head drops to the side and he pulls a handful of the sheets against his mouth to moan against it desperately enough that it almost sounds like a muffled scream. The sight and sound of it makes Richie thrust into him harder to chase his own release, and he struggles to keep himself steady above him.

“_Eddie_-” he begins again, but he has to briefly stop to calm the shake in his own voice. He nearly loses it when he watches Eddie’s free hand move down between his legs and he knows that he must be close, “_Eddie, tell me that you want Bill to fuck you_.”

It comes out sounding a lot more desperate and a lot less in control than he hoped it would, but he’s so close that he can feel it burning right where his and Eddie’s hips meet. Eddie is desperate, too, and he seems to have lost whatever shame he had before about the whole situation. He presses the sheets harder against his lips, before dropping his head back instead as Richie knocks another loud moan out of him.

“_I…I want Bill to fuck me_-” It’s breathed more than it is spoken, and Eddie’s cheeks darken further at the sound of his admission, but shortly after that he comes right across his chest with Richie reaching his own peak not long after, holding Eddie’s hips tight against his own as he rides it out.

As they lie together after, sweat-soaked and still calming their breathing, Eddie chuckles to himself and then can’t seem to stop giggling. Richie gives him a confused look but he’s ready to be amused.

“What’s so funny?”

“Bill wasn’t even _here_ and he still made me come harder than _you_ ever have.”

Richie knows that he’s joking and after an expected shout of ‘Eddie Spaghetti gets off a good one!’ where it isn’t clear if he’s talking about Eddie’s joke or something else, they both laugh until they’re crying.

Later on, when they’re lying in bed and Richie has long since fallen asleep, Eddie lies staring at the ceiling and wondering where the fuck they go from here.

They’re almost twenty.

Eddie sits in the passenger seats of Bill’s car, staring nervously out of the window at the stop sign they’re currently waiting at. He’s not quite sure how Richie managed to have the conversation with both Bill _and_ Stan about their mutual attraction to each other, or how he somehow got them to agree to explore it further but if there’s one thing that Richie Tozier is good at, it’s talking himself out of –or into- any situation he wants.

Eddie himself hasn’t spoken to Bill since then and it feels weird. He felt even weirder since he got into Bill’s beat up, old car, right next to him with barely a glance in his direction. Bill is nervous, too, and Eddie can sense it. He can tell by the way he keeps shifting around in his seat and how white his knuckles are against the steering wheel. They’re supposed to be having a conversation, that’s all, about the way they feel but for the state of Eddie’s nerves they may as well be about to drive right off the edge of a cliff.

“Y-y-you oh-okay?” Bill asks suddenly. Eddie is so tense that it makes him jump, but he notices how bad Bill’s stutter has gotten and it makes him feel a little bit better about his own anxiety. He sees Bill’s eyes flick to his own for a split second before he looks back at the road.

“Yeah. What about you?”

He inwardly curses and cringes a little for asking Bill to speak again.

“I’ve b-b-buh-been better.” Bill lets out a nervous little chuckle and it makes Eddie laugh, too. The air in the car suddenly feels a little bit lighter. A silence descends upon them again but it doesn’t feel as bad this time, although it’s getting dark outside and for some reason that makes him feel tense all over again. As they drive, Eddie thinks about the similar conversation that must be happening between Richie and Stan at the same time and wonders if it’s as painful as this.

“Where are we going?” he brings himself to ask after about ten minutes of pure silence. The sound of his own voice is awful in the quiet of the car. Bill blinks rapidly a couple of times, like he always does when he’s nervous, and Eddie can see his eyes flitting about the road.

“I d-…I don’t know…”

He can’t think of a way to respond so he stays quiet and turns away from Bill to look out of the window instead. The streetlamps have come on, now, and he can see tiny lights in the windows of all of the buildings in the distance. It feels like they’ve been driving forever when Bill pulls the car over to a stop near a wooded area beside the river Hudson. There’s nobody around and Eddie feels a wave of anxiety crash over him again. Bill turns off the engine and the click of the keys sounds to Eddie like a gun being loaded.

“I thought we could just g-go for a walk,” Bill says quietly as he unclips his seatbelt. Eddie does the same, but he waits for Bill to get out of the car first before opening his own door and stepping out into the cool, evening air, wishing that he’d brought more than just a thin sweatshirt.

Neither of them say anything while Bill locks the car, nor while they begin to walk side-by-side along the edge of the riverbank. Eddie thinks that even _walking_ next to Bill feels different, now; he has the same sort of feeling in his stomach that he used to get around Richie when they first started dating. His chest feels a little tight and he’s suddenly concerned that he didn’t bring his inhaler.

“Do you…wanna go first?” Bill asks him suddenly, and he looks over. He’s never seen Bill look timid before but his hands are tucked into the pockets of his jeans and he doesn’t seem to know where to put himself. Eddie shakes his head quickly and tries to swallow the dryness out of his mouth.

“O-okay. I don’t want anything to be d-different between us…now. I’m still…you’re still my best friend, E-Eddie…”

The way Bill says his name with a little quiver in his voice makes Eddie’s heart skip a beat.

“Of course,” he says, quietly, “You’re still my best friend, too.”

Bill gives him a soft, genuine smile and Eddie’s heart skips again. He seems to move a little closer as they walk, but his hands are still tucked deep into his pockets, as if he’s afraid of what to do with them if they’re free.

“I…” Bill continues, looking at the ground in front of his feet, “When Richie t-t-told me…I know this sounds strange but I fuh-felt like I kinda knew already. I know it’s weird but…I guess part of me always knew that th-this is how it was suh-supposed to be. Do you know what I mean?”

Eddie thinks that he does. He nods his head.

“I don’t really know what’s gonna h-h-happen but…I really like you, Eddie…and not just…” he pauses, as if he knows that saying these next words will solidify something between them, but Eddie knows that he will say it because it’s Bill, and Bill is brave, “…not just as a friend.”

Hearing Bill say it makes Eddie’s chest feel fluttery and he thinks of how many times when they were children he would imagine what it would be like to be loved by Bill in _that_ way. He’s always known that Bill has loved him, but not like _this_. He feels a smile creep across his face before he can stop it and knows that Bill has seen it because he sees him smile, too, out of the corner of his eye and everything suddenly feels _perfect_.

He doesn’t realise that they’re walking much closer until Bill’s arm brushes his own and he feels a little jittery with nerves, the good sort that you get when you’re excited. Just like he thought, Bill takes a hand out of his pocket and reaches out to gently slot their fingers together. His hand is much warmer than Eddie’s and it feels nice.

They walk back to the car, hand-in-hand, as it starts to really get dark. As Bill fumbles in his pocket for his car keys, Eddie feels a little bit brazen all of a sudden and as Bill is still looking down, he leans in to kiss him. It catches Bill off guard but he doesn’t pull away, immediately taking his hand out of his jacket pocket where his keys are to tenderly place it against Eddie’s neck. Kissing Bill is exactly how Eddie imagined it would be, soft and gentle and not one hundred percent experienced but Eddie still thinks it’s one of the best kisses he’s ever had. His heart is doing somersaults in his chest because it’s _Bill_, he’s kissing _Bill Denbrough_.

And then they’re in the back of Bill’s car together because Eddie told him that he wanted to stay for a while. He thinks, from the way one of Bill’s hands is tangled into his hair as they kiss against the back seats that Bill maybe wanted to stay for a while, too. It’s different to kissing Richie; Bill is much less forward about it and it _almost_ makes Eddie feel like the one who’s in control. It’s strangely intoxicating, the way Bill follows him each time he pulls away for a second, the way he leans right into it whenever Eddie puts a hand anywhere on him and the way, whenever his eyes crack open in the midst of it, they’re just a little bit hazy. And Eddie has never seen Bill’s eyes look like _that_ before.

When one of Bill’s hands inches onto his waist, even over a few layers of clothing, he feels suddenly light-headed. He wonders then what it would be like to have sex with Bill. _Is he as gentle and careful as he is when he’s kissing?_ _What would it feel like to have Bill’s dick inside him instead of Richie’s?_

His mind goes wild at the thought and he has to stop it from wandering any further, has to stop himself from imagining what that part of Bill might look like, let alone what it might _feel_ like. He must have gone pretty red, so he’s glad of the low light in the car, but Bill’s hand is still there on his body and he’s torn between wanting him to take it away because it scares him, and wanting it to be underneath his clothes because he’s curious about what Bill can do with his hands that apparently Stan and Richie have talked about.

Deciding to test it just a little, he reaches for Bill’s hand and slowly moves it underneath his sweatshirt _and_ the t-shirt beneath it, shuddering into the kiss when Bill grips at him there. His hand is not as large as Richie’s and certainly less rough; where Richie’s fingertips are calloused from playing guitar and scarred with cigarette burns, Bill’s are soft and warm and gentle.

Tentatively, Bill feels around Eddie’s waist underneath his clothes as they kiss, curious fingers roaming over the skin of his lower back and leaving him covered in goose pimples. It feels incredibly innocent yet somehow makes him hot all over. He’d really like to touch Bill under his clothes, too, but he’s not quite brave enough. He runs his fingers through Bill’s auburn hair instead and it’s like silk between them. Everything about Bill is so perfect, just like he knew it would be.

“D-do you…wanna go back home?” Bill asks into the small space between their lips, clearly more out of consideration for Eddie than anything else because judging by the almost serene look on his face he’s quite enjoying himself where he is. Eddie leans in to connect their lips again with a small shake of his head and this time Bill pulls him closer with the hand that’s still exploring the small of his back. His mind feels fuzzy and he’s starting to get hot and bothered. Bill’s fingers have dipped into the waistband of his jeans.

It isn’t long before arousal spurs Eddie to touch Bill, too, gives him the courage –or at least the sheer force of will- to feel his way from Bill’s neck and down onto his chest. It’s much more solid than Richie’s; he rests his hand there for a while, getting used to the feeling. Bill’s heart is beating fast under his palm and Eddie is sure that his own must be going even faster. He’s excited, sure, but he’s also starting to feels oddly self-conscious about his budding erection.

He wonders if Bill is getting hard, too. It’s an intense kiss, they’ve swapped a little bit of saliva and Bill’s mouth is intriguingly hot, but Eddie still worries that he’s the only one turned on. If he drops his hand to Bill’s waist, makes it look like an accident when it accidentally goes further, he might be able to find out. He’s giving himself a pep talk to try and work up the courage to do so when Bill gets there first, and not subtly at all. Bill’s hand comes from around his back and slides confidently straight between Eddie’s thighs.

Eddie can’t control himself and he instantly reaches to press Bill’s hand there harder, letting out a shaky breath when Bill squeezes at him and grinds down with his palm. He suffers through _five_ _whole minutes_ of this exquisite torture, Bill’s fingers firmly rubbing the outline of his dick through his jeans and _holy fucking shit_ whatever Stan said about Bill’s hands was right on the money. He’s breathing hard against Bill’s neck and shoulder where their bodies are now pressed together and he smells like that musky, woody cologne he always wears; Eddie doesn’t know what it is but he’s always associated it with Bill and it’s _so good_.

When he feels Bill’s fingers working at the button on his jeans and then his zipper he freezes up a little. Bill must feel his body go tense because there’s a light kiss against Eddie’s neck and a whisper of ‘_It’s okay_’ as he works his hand into the front of his jeans and it’s so good that Eddie feels like he’s going to come right then but thankfully it’s a false alarm and the intense feeling passes. He’s so worked up that he forgets to be nervous after a while and finds Bill’s belt in the dark with shaking hands. Bill helps him to unclasp it when he can’t, quickly opening his own button and fly as well. As Eddie presses his hand in between the layers of denim and cotton and feels the heat and hardness of Bill’s erection under his fingers, he feels him muffle a moan against his shoulder.

Neither of them speaks, only roaming hands and bodies pressed tight together in the back of Bill’s car. Every part of Bill is hot, his hand inside Eddie’s jeans, his lips, the inside of his mouth, the bare skin of his abdomen where he lifted his shirt out of the way for Eddie to touch more of him and Eddie feels dizzied by all of it. It’s intense. It’s almost overwhelming.

Bill comes first and Eddie is a little taken aback by how easy it was. He only managed to get a few good strokes in before Bill was rocking his hips against Eddie’s palm and his eyelids started to flutter. There’s an almost feminine quality to Bill’s voice when he moans, high and breathless in Eddie’s ear and Eddie definitely thinks that he would like to hear more of it. It’s pleasant, yet it makes him feel strangely tense and restless, like he wants to be doing more to Bill than just getting him off with his hand.

After that, Bill’s hand gets right into Eddie’s boxers and he’s infinitely grateful to find that Stan wasn’t lying about what he can do. He ends up writhing and sweating against Bill’s body as he works him to a climax that makes his thighs feel all shaky and weak. He even forgets to worry about coming right onto Bill’s hand until he sees him, later on when they’re back in the front seats of the car, cleaning up with some tissues he took out of the glove compartment. Eddie feels a little grossed out when Bill touches the wheel afterwards, but he doesn’t say anything.

As they drive home, the dynamic between them starts to feel almost normal again. Eddie complains when Bill accidentally runs a red light and they argue about it a little, they listen to the radio and sing along to some of their favourite songs and then they talk about what Mike might be making them for their dinner. The only difference this time, is that when they stop at the next set of traffic lights and Bill puts on the handbrake, he leans over it to give Eddie a brief kiss.

Back at home, Richie waits nervously in the corridor outside Stan’s bedroom. It’s not like Richie to be anxious about talking to someone, even less like him to _show_ it but he’s currently pacing up and down in front of the door and practicing what he might say.

“Stan…we both know what this is about, so…can we just skip to the part where we have already talked about it and just see where it goes from there?” he says quietly to himself, before shaking his head a little, “Stanley- No,” he paces a little more before stopping in front of the door and shrugging his shoulders, “_Wanna fuck_?”

Stan takes that exact moment to open his bedroom door and Richie tries to nonchalantly lean against the frame of it within a split second. He doesn’t think that Stan heard what he said because he’s just standing there looking at him with a vague expression.

“Why are you wandering around outside my room?”

“Just…you know…hanging out…”

“…In the hallway?”

“This is where all the cool kids go these days, Stanley.”

“If by ‘cool kids’ you mean Bill, then you’re wrong.” He punctuates the phrase ‘cool kids’ with some extremely sarcastic air quotes and Richie chuckles.

“Bill is cool in his own way.”

“Bill’s not cool,” Stan shakes his head solemnly, “We’re just all delusional…and _even_ less cool than he is.”

Richie laughs, then shrugs and raps his fingers against the door frame for a while.

“So…you gonna let me in, or what?”

Stan seems to contemplate it for a while, looking Richie up and down without moving his head, before he steps aside slowly, not saying a word. It all seems pretty normal, ‘Stan-like’ behaviour but Richie has known him long enough to be able to sense that he isn’t completely relaxed about the situation. He breezes past Stan into the room and plops himself on the edge of the bed.

“Do you wanna talk?” Stan asks calmly as he closes the door, although Richie notices the way he flinches ever so slightly as the latch clicks into place. He feels a little bad for him.

“Uh, yeah…that’s all. I just wanna talk.” He messes with the string fastenings on his sweatpants, silently begging himself not to say anything stupid or inappropriate but he can’t always help it.

Stan seems to relax a little, Richie can see it in his shoulders, and he sits in the desk chair opposite the bed, although his position in the chair is oddly rigid, even for Stan. He looks strange and small, sitting there in his matching pyjamas with his hands gripping at his knees, and Richie feels the urge to go over and give him a reassuring hug. He stays where he is, instead.

“So…” Stan says quietly, reaching up to a pale blue fountain pen that’s on the desk beside him and straightening it until it’s perpendicular to the note paper beside it. Watching him do it makes Richie feel uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Richie cuts in before Stan speaks again, “I don’t want this to change anything…and I don’t think it will. Not if we don’t let it.”

“It was hard enough for me to come to terms with liking Bill.” Stan is speaking to the carpet more than to Richie, and he’s starting to sound a little irritated, like he sometimes does when he’s in an unfamiliar situation and gets stressed.

“I know. I remember.”

“And you know that this is weird, right?” He finally looks Richie in the eyes. “This is weird.”

“It’s _not_. Stan, you know something about _us_ just doesn’t fit in with other people’s _normal_. I think that this has been going on for a long time but we were too chicken to say anything.”

“Because it’s _weird_,” Stan repeats. He’s starting to look a little upset, so Richie gets up to go over and crouch in front of him. He considers resting his hands over Stan’s on his knees but decides against it. Stan looks tense enough as it is.

“If it feels right, then it’s not weird.”

“It _doesn’t_ feel right.”

“How would we know?”

Stan’s eyes rest on Richie’s again briefly before he turns his head away. His gaze returns a couple of times to Richie’s face, as if he’s contemplating it, but each time he looks away again. Richie watches him carefully, waiting for an opportunity before, the next time Stan is facing him, he stands up to kiss him. It’s barely a kiss, as Stan’s hand comes up underneath Richie’s chin and he pushes him away rather hastily the first time. His cheeks look flushed and Richie kisses him again. Stan’s fingers are still clasped around Richie’s jaw but this time, he allows it, although he seems to be leaning far back in the desk chair as if he’s ready to turn away at any second.

Richie pulls away, then, to adjust the position of his head. He’d gone in at a rather odd angle in his haste, and he moves back in slowly this time, sensing that Stan may have leaned in, too, to close the gap between them more quickly. Stan’s fingers twitch against his jaw but he doesn’t retract his hand, and Richie doesn’t know whether it’s there ready to push him off if it gets too much or to pull him closer. As tense as Stan had seemed at first, he sits forward in his chair to get a little closer after a while, and the hand on Richie’s jaw loosens to slide onto the back of his neck.

Clearly, Stan isn’t much of a kisser; he breaks away just as Richie is about to see if Stan will let him put his tongue in, although there’s a definite pink in his cheeks. He stands out of his chair slowly, holding his hands up in front of Richie’s chest, without touching him, so he steps back to let him up. He’s not making any eye contact with him whatsoever. For a brief, terrifying moment, Richie thinks that Stan is going to ask him to leave. Stan seems like he’s about to move past him, at first, but he looks at Richie again, pauses, reaches up to take Richie’s glasses off and folds them to gently place them on the desk. Richie wonders if that’s Stan’s way of trying to give himself a little bit of control over the situation, but he doesn’t question it as Stan leans in to kiss him again.

He still feels rigid, which is something he’s never been around Richie and it doesn’t feel right. Richie is the one to pull away this time, and he chuckles and shakes his head at Stan’s confused expression.

“Dude, why the fuck are you so tense?”

Stan raises his eyebrows and looks at him incredulously.

“Uh…maybe because I don’t usually _kiss_ my best friends?”

“Not like _that_ you don’t,” Richie chuckles, watching the sudden challenge in Stan’s eyes and feeling a spark of excitement that he can’t quite place, “Do you kiss Bill like tha-”

Richie is cut off as Stan suddenly shoves him back against the desk to kiss him again. It hits the backs of his thighs and it hurts a little but he can’t even mumble his complaints into Stan’s mouth with how roughly he’s being kissed. Everything happens quickly after that and even Richie’s hyperactive mind can barely keep up.

One second his tongue is in Stan’s mouth and the next he’s being pushed away as Stan gets his hands on Richie’s waist, and Richie only watches him like a fucking deer in headlights as Stan lifts his t-shirt off over his head and drops it aside, leaving him bare and exposed. He feels oddly self-conscious as Stan’s eyes inspect his chest in a different way than they ever have before.

“You wanna take a picture?” he says, hoping for it to come out more confidently than it actually does. Stan looks up from his inspecting and his eyes catch Richie’s in a way that makes Richie go silent. When Stan moves in to kiss him again, he purposely misses Richie’s lips altogether and lands on his cheek and Richie doesn’t understand at first, but feeling Stan’s lips so close to his own, with no contact, makes him feel a little needy.

The possibility that Stan might be teasing him, _playing_ with him, makes him feel more than a little bit excited. Games are something that Richie is particularly good at and if Stan wants to go down that road, then Richie is happy to participate. He decides to try and get his own reaction, reaching up to brush Stan’s hair aside so he can get his lips onto his neck and when he does, he feels Stan’s shoulders go tense.

He kisses and sucks at the skin there until a bruise is barely starting to form, but Stan can clearly sense it, too, and he weakly tells him to stop. If anything, it sounded almost reluctant, but when Richie continues despite the protest, Stan pushes him away and looks him in the eye.

“Don’t leave any marks on me,” he says calmly, although his eyes are starting to look a little dark and hazy and it makes Richie feel hot all over. He nods in agreement. The edge of the desk is still pressing into his thighs and it’s uncomfortable. He’s starting to get a little irritable and restless.

“This is fucking dumb,” he says suddenly, out loud, and Stan almost looks a little bit hurt, _disappointed_, maybe. He steps aside and motions to the bedroom door.

“Okay, then go.” He rubs at his neck where Richie kissed him, as if he’s trying to wipe away the memory of it in his embarrassment, “Just forget it.”

Richie almost feels a little bit guilty that he took it that way, but he chuckles, feeling suddenly like the one in control of the situation when Stan looks at him again, irritated. He shakes his head.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant…” he moves away from the worktop, rounding on Stan and feeling oddly satisfied when Stan backs away from him, right into the desk Richie just left. He stumbles against it a little but keeps a watchful eye on Richie, “…that it’s fucking dumb that we’re just dancing around it like this.”

“Dancing around _what_?”

“I wanna fuck you, Stan,” Richie says matter-of-factly. He leans right into Stan’s space, but this time Stan doesn’t move away. He’s watching Richie’s eyes closely, “I think about you sometimes when I’m fucking Eddie, think about what kinda noises _you_ would make…”

He can’t help himself now that he’s started, and he grabs at Stan and suddenly lifts him up onto the desk, revelling in the surprised look in his eyes and the hitch in his breath. The neatly organised array of stationary falls to the floor as Richie pushes it aside and Stan flinches at the sound of it but he keeps his eyes on Richie. It’s difficult to tell what he’s thinking.

“So…whaddya think?”

Stan watches him for a while silently, straightening himself against the desk in order to gain back some control. He glances at the mess of items on the floor.

“I think you’re going to pick all of that shit up as soon as we’re done and put it back exactly where you found it.”

Richie chuckles, leaning in to kiss him again with an amused little ‘yes, sir’. Stan kisses him back and it quickly gets heated as his hands find Richie’s hair. Clearly the little display of dominance is what did it for him, and Richie briefly wonders if Bill knows this secret. He drags Stan’s hips to the edge of the desk to get between his spread thighs, feeling a jolt of excitement go through his spine as Stan immediately clamps them against him.

He wrestles with Stan’s stupid pyjama shirt for far too long before Stan gets fed up and pushes his hands away to undo the buttons himself, although once it’s open and Richie moves in to get his mouth on Stan’s chest he stops complaining. He gasps when Richie bites at one of his nipples but that’s about as much of a sound as it draws from him, although Richie can see the goose pimples all over his pale skin and he runs his tongue across them as Stan’s fingers tangle into Richie’s hair and he silently begs him to pull it like Eddie usually does. He doesn’t, but the anticipation is almost as good.

Working his way back up to Stan’s lips, he presses his body firmly against him, aware that he’s hard and that Stan can probably feel it but not having the capacity to care. He wants to see if Stan is hard, too, and he slides his hand between them to get it onto the front of Stan’s pyjama pants.

He’s barely hard, and it throws Richie off for just a second. Stan must feel him pause; he goes tense and hastily pushes Richie’s hand away.

“Stan…it’s fine, just _let_ me-”

“I wanna go to bed,” Stan says suddenly, moving Richie away without looking at him and jumping down from the desk. He rapidly fastens the buttons on his shirt again. Richie tries to speak again but Stan only collects Richie’s t-shirt from the floor and shoves it at him, giving him a nudge towards the door as he does.

“Are you serious?”

Stan doesn’t answer. He’s crouched on the floor, picking up the things from his desk with his back facing Richie.

“_Stan_.”

“I’m tired,” he says blankly, placing the objects neatly back onto the work surface where they were before. He still doesn’t look at him.

Richie is about to speak again but Stan must sense it and he continues to tidy the desk with a very pointed ‘_Goodnight_, Richie.’ Richie has no choice but to leave.

He closes the door behind himself and tugs his shirt back on in the hallway, feeling bemused.

They’re twenty years old.

The Losers sit in the kitchen of their shared house, having breakfast together. There’s a pot of freshly brewed coffee on the counter top. Stan is reading a book about accounting at the table and stirring his drink absent-mindedly with a teaspoon. Richie is tiredly chewing on some cereal, looking like he might fall asleep into it at any second while Eddie sits beside him counting out vitamins and supplements into a pill organiser. The other side of the table is occupied by Bill, Ben and Bev, who are all eating toast. Mike stands at the kitchen counter, a leather messenger bag slung across his body as he collects a thermos of coffee to pack into it.

Eddie, who is sitting the closest to where Mike is standing, prepares himself for the obligatory hug that comes whenever Mike leaves to go to work. It’s one of the many rituals that they’ve all become accustomed to with seven of them living together.

As expected, Mike approaches the table and gets to Eddie first. He leans down with a beaming smile and Eddie moves in for a hug, totally blanking when Mike bends to kiss him on the lips instead.

The room goes silent. Richie stops chewing and drops his spoon into the bowl with a clink and Stan lowers his book onto the table. Beverly stifles a laugh with her hands, her eyes wide behind them. As soon as Mike realises what he’s done, he pulls back and slaps a hand to his mouth almost comically, hiding a smile. Eddie’s cheeks are as red as they’ve ever been.

“Oh shoot…Eds…I’m so sorry,” Mike chuckles, looking as shocked as the rest of them, “I don’t know why I did that.”

Eddie looks like he doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth to speak but just shrugs his shoulders instead, the movement so brief that it almost looks as if he has strings attached and someone tugged at them.

“Well, some people are gonna get jealous, Mike,” Richie suddenly cuts in, “I hope you’re not gonna leave the rest of us hangin’.”

Bill and Beverly both laugh and so does Mike, but he still looks astonished. He lowers his hand from his mouth and adjusts his bag across the centre of his body, perking up again quickly after.

“Okay. Well, gotta get to work, guys.”

He goes to Richie first, kissing him the way he did Eddie, just a small, loving thing and Richie leans up to it, chuckling against his lips. Then he goes to Stan, looking briefly unsure when Stan is looking right at him, but he kisses him anyway and Stan doesn’t pull away. He goes back to his book right after, like it’s normal. Beverly reacts in the same way as Richie, almost standing out of her chair to make it easier for him to reach her and giggling against his mouth. _Bill_ kisses _Mike_, pulling him down gently by his neck and softly meeting their lips as he smiles at him and they share a fond look. Lastly, he goes to Ben, and seeing how nervous he is about it, he gives him a small smile and leans in to kiss him just next to his lips instead.

“See you later, guys,” he chuckles on his way out of the door with his usual smile full of sunshine shining a little brighter than normal.

After he leaves, they all carry on as if it’s another regular day and nobody mentions it.

It becomes a new part of their routine.

They’re twenty-one.

Sitting in the lounge, with six of them crushed onto one couch and Stan sitting in an armchair by himself doing a crossword puzzle, the Losers’ Club watch a stupid comedy bit on TV. It was Richie’s choice and his additions and comments have been far more humorous than anything on the show. Eddie is engrossed with putting Bev’s hair into a plait, her head resting in his lap while she lies across all of them. Mike is massaging her feet.

As they reach the commercials, Richie looks down at Bev from where he’s sitting pressed up next to Eddie and chuckles.

“Enjoying yourself, princess?”

“I am,” she grins, “Not that you can complain. You got the best part.”

She laughs and lightly pats both of her breasts right underneath Richie’s gaze, causing Ben to blush and Mike and Bill to break into laughter along with her. Stan is paying no attention to them, still focused wholly on his crossword.

“_Well_…” Eddie drones, rolling his eyes, “Maybe that’s not everyone’s favourite part.”

“Are you kidding me? Have you ever touched one of these bad boys?” Richie says loudly, causing Stan to look over, “Tell me that this isn’t the softest thing you’ve ever felt.”

He takes one of Eddie’s hands with his own and places it right onto Beverly’s chest. Beverly squeals and breaks into fits of giggles again, kicking her legs a little.

_“You guys know I’m ticklish!”_

Eddie doesn’t pull away immediately, just stares at Richie challengingly until he seems satisfied that he’s made a point, before he moves his hand away from Beverly’s breast. He makes a point of looking down at her and apologising.

“Sorry, Bev.”

She chuckles and reaches up to gently pat his cheek.

“How was it?”

“I mean…it _was_ soft,” he breaks, and they all start laughing, including Stan. Eddie is still wheezing when he speaks again, “You know, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m scared of boobs.”

“Why not? Ben’s probably scared of dicks,” Richie chimes in.

“You do realise that he has one, right?” Stan counters, clearly sensing that Richie’s comment might not have been taken very well on Ben’s part. They all laugh again and thankfully, Ben doesn’t seem too uncomfortable.

“True,” Richie nods, clearly unable to stop his mouth from running, “And from what I’ve heard it’s pretty h-”

Beverly nearly knocks Eddie out by sitting up so suddenly, and slaps a hand over Richie’s mouth before he can finish his sentence with a disbelieving _‘Richie!’ _

Stan rolls his eyes from across the room but they are all watching Ben to gauge his reaction. He shrugs his shoulders a little but he’s avoiding eye contact with all of them.

“No, it’s fine. I get it. All of you guys are…inclined…that way…in some form. And I’m not. That’s just how it is.”

“Yeah but it’s gonna be a problem if we’re all…_y’know_…?”

The room falls silent briefly. It’s not something they’ve really spoken about, rather just let happen gradually. Mike still kisses them all on his way out to work, sometimes Beverly will take showers with Richie or Bill and wash their hair for them, Eddie falls asleep on Stan whenever they’re sitting in the lounge together, and all of these things have not been brought up in conversation. They’re just things that _are_.

“So…nobody else wants to talk about it…_again_,” Richie follows up, sounding bummed out, “Or is it just normal friend behaviour that Bill has sucked my dick?”

Bill nearly chokes on his own saliva and Mike has to pat him on the back.

“That w-w-was just-”

“You guys are pathetic,” Richie continues, but he’s looking directly at Bill, as if he expects him, as their de facto leader, to back him up, “You got on your knees in front of me and put my dick in your mouth and you can’t even say it out loud?”

Eddie looks scandalised that someone would be speaking to Bill in that way, but he says nothing. Ben looks decidedly more uncomfortable than he did before.

“Richie, _c’mon_,” Mike pleads, quietly, clearly trying to break the tension.

“…No, it’s okay, M-Mike. He’s right.”

All eyes turn to Bill, now, as they always do whenever he’s speaking. The air in the room seems to ease a little.

“He’s right. W-wuh-we shouldn’t just ignore it. There’s something going on between all of us and…we have to admit it.” He looks around the room expectantly.

Beverly is the first one to nod, Ben the last, but all of them seem in agreement with his words.

“It’s weird though, right?” Mike says, but he’s smiling, “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

“Me either.” Beverly is smiling back at him, “I don’t think any of us have. It’s not…” she pauses, “It’s not something you normally get the chance to be a part of.”

They sit together quietly for a while, basking in their shared understanding now that it’s out in the open.

“Well, I’m glad that’s been finally brought up!” Richie stretches and leans back in his seat, “Now we can just get to the good stuff, right?” he winks at Ben as he says it and Ben looks like he doesn’t know what to do. As Richie continues his monologue about always wanting to have a threesome, with Stan and Eddie looking decidedly unimpressed, Ben gently lifts Beverly’s legs out of his lap and stands to leave the room.

Mike watches him go and seems like he’s about to get up but Beverly stops him and mouths ‘I’ll go’ before climbing out of Bill and Richie’s laps to follow him.

Ben is standing in the kitchen by the window, looking out at the street. His palms are flat against the countertop and he seems a little shaken up. He doesn’t see Beverly come in.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” she asks softly, going to stand beside him. She rests her cheek against his arm and strokes at his back soothingly, “You can tell me.”

“I just…I know this is _right_.” He sounds angry with himself, “I know that there’s something _there_…I just don’t know if I’m ready to…explore…certain things.”

“Hey, nobody is asking you to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with,” she reassures him, “Ben, look at me.”

He turns immediately to look down into her eyes, clearly feeling comforted by it, “I don’t wanna be left out, Bev…I just…I’ve never…experienced that sort of attraction for anyone but you…”

Her eyes soften and she looks at him lovingly, but there’s a hint of worry there, too. They all know that this won’t work if all seven of them don’t want it to.

“Ben-”

“No, please let me finish,” he begs, holding gently to her shoulders, “I don’t wanna ruin this for everyone…I know that I’m the risk…but I really want to give it a chance. I just…need to see if it’s right and I haven’t…had the opportunity.”

She studies his eyes for a while, before coming to a realisation.

“Well, there’s no point in drawing it out, let’s just go and talk to the other guys. I’m sure they’ll understand. We can work something out.”

“Please don’t do that. I don’t wanna walk in there and do this.”

She sees the panic in his face and pauses as she was about to turn to re-enter the room.

“Okay. Okay. We don’t have to do that. You don’t have to say anything…just let me go and talk to them.”

He shakes his head rapidly, “Beverly, please…don’t. I don’t want this to be a big thing that everyone knows about.”

“Then I’ll just talk to one person.”

Ben seems to contemplate this for a while, still looking unsure.

“Which one?”

“I’ll…know when I get in there,” Bev chuckles a little, turning again.

“Not Richie,” Ben says quickly, “Or Stan.”

Beverly looks slightly amused by it and she nods, mouthing ‘okay’ as she’s about to re-enter the room.

“And not Eddie…I feel like he’ll just be embarrassed too and then it’ll be even worse.”

She nods again as she waves at him to stay where he is and disappears into the lounge.

He sits at the kitchen table watching the door to the lounge for what feels like hours but is really only about five minutes, his nerves rising and falling like waves of nauseating adrenaline. Expecting Beverly to reappear through the door at any second, he taps his socked foot against the hardwood kitchen floor. His stomach, heart and everything else jump into his throat when Bill walks out instead, closing the door gently behind him and giving Ben a knowing smile.

A million thoughts race through his mind all at once but really, he knows that it had to be Bill all along. There was nobody else for the _job_, so to speak. Bill’s hand lingers on the door handle briefly before he lets go of it and comes over to the table where Ben is sitting.

“So…you wanna g-g-go somewhere so we can talk?” Bill asks softly, and Ben finds that he can only nod, standing to blindly follow Bill out of the kitchen and down the hall. He feels like he’s in school and being taken to the principal’s office to be spoken to.

Bill leads him to the second family room in their house, the one that they rarely all use together because there’s no TV and they go inside. Bill closes the door as Ben sits down on the couch rigidly. When Bill comes to join him, he sits closer than Ben thought he would and it makes his throat go dry.

_This was a bad idea._

“B-Bev said that you wanted to…try something,” Bill says, but his eyes are searching, like he’s not entirely sure that that’s what Ben will have wanted at all.

“…Try something?”

“Yeah, I just…she said you wanted the opportunity to see if this f-fuh-felt right…” He motions between himself and Ben briefly. His eyes are piercing and Ben wants to look away but he can’t. The way Bill so easily commands people’s attention will always be a mystery to him.

“I mean, not just with you…” Ben adds, feeling like he needs to make himself clear, but thankfully Bill seems to understand.

“W-with a man,” he nods, smiling reassuringly.

“Oh boy,” Ben chuckles. He feels like he’s sweating, “When you say it out loud it makes me really nervous.”

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” Bill says firmly, his eyes locked onto Ben’s again, “I mean…nerves are normal but…they sh-should be _good_ nerves…”

Ben stops to think about it. His palms are sweaty and he feels a little bit light-headed. There are butterflies in his stomach. It doesn’t feel _good_, but aren’t these the same feelings he always used to get around Beverly? He thinks that maybe they are.

“Are you sure y-you’re okay with this?”

He nods, wiping his damp hands on his sweatpants as Bill shifts even closer on the couch. There isn’t much space left between them, now.

“Yeah. I’m fine, just…just do what you’re gonna do.”

Bill chuckles and frowns at him, running his fingers through his hair briefly.

“I’m just gonna k-k-kiss you. You don’t have to look so worried.”

“Okay.”

Ben clearly still looks worried, as Bill completely takes the lead. He lifts one of his hands to show it to him briefly.

“I’m gonna p-put this here,” he says, reaching to place his palm against Ben’s neck. Bill’s hand is slightly damp, too, and Ben thinks that he must also be nervous. It makes him feel a little bit better. As Bill leans in, he speaks again, quietly, “I’m just gonna kiss you, okay?”

“You don’t have to narrate everything,” Ben whispers, feeling the resulting breath of Bill’s chuckle against his lips and he thinks it makes them both feel less nervous.

Bill shrugs, smiling a little. His eyes are on Ben’s lips, now.

_“I’m a writer,”_ he whispers back, before closing the gap between them.

His first thought, strange as it seems, is that Bill’s lips are just as soft as Beverly’s. It’s an odd realisation but one that helps immensely. In fact, he thinks that Bill’s lips might even be a little fuller. Bill is gentle, careful, considerate; he keeps his hand on Ben’s neck where he said he would put it, resting his other arm against the back of the couch beside them. It’s not much different to kissing Beverly, at first.

After the first couple of minutes of slow, mostly-closed-mouthed kissing, Bill pulls away but keeps his hand on Ben.

“Are you okay?” he asks, quietly, into the space between them, studying Ben’s eyes when he opens them. He hadn’t even realised that they’d closed. Up this close, he can see just how blue Bill’s eyes really are. _Breath-taking_, just like Beverly’s.

“_Yeah_,” he breathes, becoming a little love struck all of a sudden. It’s an odd feeling for him to have for someone who isn’t Beverly Marsh but Bill is looking at him in the same way that _she_ does and his thumb is gently stroking Ben’s jaw. Beverly does that, too.

When Bill leans in again, Ben goes to meet him half way. It’s starting to feel much more natural. He’s kissed Beverly plenty of times and he knows how this works, knows the intricacies of it. He thought it would feel different with a man but it doesn’t.

Instinctively, he shifts closer to Bill on the couch so that their knees knock together and Bill clearly takes it as a hint that he’s ready to take it a step further. The kiss becomes open-mouthed, still slow but much more intense. Bill’s tongue tastes different to Beverly’s and it scares him a little but there’s something strangely exciting about it, too. He wonders if Bill is thinking the same thing.

The real shift from his ability to measure this against what it’s like to kiss Beverly is when Bill’s hand slides into his hair. It’s larger than her hand, that’s a given, but there’s something _almost_ more forceful about the fingers running across his scalp. Not that Bill is being rough, not by any measure of the word, but there’s something definitively more masculine about the touch.

Throughout the whole thing, he never manages to bring himself to put a hand on Bill. Although he supposes there’ll be plenty of time to worry about that in the future.

When they finally break for good, his head feels hazy in a good way, now. Bill places another soft peck against Ben’s parted lips while his eyes are still shut as they pull apart and they both chuckle. Ben’s chest feels light. He silently praises Beverly for picking Bill to be his first.

Once they return to the lounge, barely twenty minutes later, Beverly looks up at them from where she’s curled against Richie’s shoulder and raises her eyebrows. Ben can’t help grinning but he mouths at her not to say anything.

“Well, you guys were gone for a long time…” Richie croons, lifting Eddie’s hand to look at his watch, “That must have been an intense _talk_ you guys were having.”

Ben, Stan, Bev and Mike all pick up cushions and throw them at Richie simultaneously. When he moves and they all hit Eddie, everyone laughs, including Eddie, who couldn’t look disgusted for too long.

“Well, we were talking about where we’re gonna take you when we finally give you to a good family,” Ben says as he sits down next to Mike, and Richie looks scandalised but impressed.

“Oh, so Benjamin’s got some _balls_ on him now he’s sucked face with our fearless leader, huh?”

Bill laughs and shakes his head, sitting on the floor in front of Stan, who rests his crossword puzzle on top of Bill’s head without missing a beat with a small ‘thanks’. Bill takes no notice of it.

“I didn’t tell him,” Beverly chuckles, looking at Ben with her hands raised in mock surrender.

“You didn’t need to tell me,” Richie says with raised eyebrows, “I have a sixth sense for these things. Unless you guys went out to put on some lipstick, ‘this’,” he motions to his own lips in demonstration, “Your lips only turn that colour from getting sucked.”

Ben puts his hand to his lips briefly, before quickly retracting it as if that might have given him away. Bill looks at him fondly and Mike tucks his arm around Ben’s shoulders protectively.

“Don’t listen to him, Ben. He’s just jealous he didn’t get to kiss your cute face,” Mike beams at him and Ben hides his face in his hands, but he’s laughing.

They stay up late that night, talking and watching stupid shows on TV and throwing things at Richie, mostly cushions and socks, whenever he says something inappropriate. Nobody mentions anything aloud about the change in their relationship again that evening. They know that they have a mutual understanding. Like most things in their lives so far, it just _is_.

It just _always_ _will be._

_They_ always will be.

The Lucky Seven.


End file.
